With a war — oh, pardon me, an “excursion’’ — continuing in Iran and the nation’s economy on the wobbly side, President-cum-Dictator Donald J. Trump moseyed into Northern Kentucky on Wednesday to badmouth the eternal pain in his side, Rep. Thomas Massie.
It’s always an event, understandably, anytime a president, even this one, takes the time to travel outside the Washington bubble and visit nearby. And it’s accurate to acknowledge that Trump, in his own, inimitable way, spoke on a myriad of topics during a stop in Boone County on Wednesday, ranging from Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsome’s dyslexia (he called him Newscum, such a clever old man), former President Joe Biden’s difficulty in walking up stairs, Trump’s distaste for windmills, and his claim that he has overseen $18 trillion in investments for the U.S. since he took the oath of office in January 2025, an exaggeration that can rightly be called an intentional falsehood.
But he could have carried those same messages and ridden his caravan of lies to wherever his black, shrunken heart desired. Instead, he chose Hebron, home base of Verst Logistics near the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, where he droned on for an hour, give or take, on issues both pertinent and trivial, and smack dab in the middle of the 4th Congressional District, a pleasant spot on the map represented in DC by Massie, R-SomewhereorotherLewisCounty, his bete noir.
The game was afoot when, prior to his arrival, Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media site, that, “Massie will go down as the WORST Republican Congressman in the long and fabled history of the United States Congress.”
After citing a long list of opponents and turncoats he despises, Trump wrote, “They are all misfits and losers, but Massie, who is running against a great American Patriot in the Kentucky primary, will hopefully lose BIG. I LOVE KENTUCKY!!!
In his Hebron speech, Trump took the scorched earth approach, claiming that Massie, a fellow Republican, is “a disaster as a congressman and, frankly, as a human being.’’
“We got to get rid of this loser,’’ Trump said. “This guy is bad. He’s disloyal to the Republican Party. He’s disloyal to the people of Kentucky, and most importantly, he is disloyal to the United States of America.”
Trump actually wound up disparaging Massie to a greater degree than he did the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of Iraq, killed in a U.S. bomb attack, perhaps because Khamenei no longer poses a threat. He finally put the exclamation point at the end of the tirade with one of his traditional insults – Massie, he said, is “a nut job.”
“I could give him the best things in the history of a Republican voter, and he’d vote no,” Trump said during the speech. “There’s something wrong with him.” He compared Massie to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Bowling Green) who, like Massie, is a libertarian who doesn’t respond to the president-cum-dictator on bended knee. But, for some reason, Trump acknowledged that he kind of likes Paul, a regard he didn’t extend to Massie.
Trump was joined on stage by Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL and farmer who is the president-cum-dictator’s choice to oppose Massie in the May 19 GOP primary. Gallrein isn’t exactly a powerhouse – he has never served in public office and lost a primary campaign for a state senate seat in 2024 despite carrying the support of the Senate’s GOP caucus. Oh, and during Trump’s first term which concluded in 2021, he was a registered independent, changing back to a Republican only after Trump left office.
Gallrein led the crowd of about 1,000 people in a “USA! USA! USA!’’ chant but that was about as deep into any subject as he cared to delve.
Massie, for some odd reason, didn’t attend the festivities in Hebron – he was in Greenup County in the far eastern portion of his district visiting with students at the Russell Middle School and Russell High School. But he did respond to the attacks, writing on the X social media site, “They’re paying to bus people to the Trump event in my Congressional District. What they’ll discover is Trump fans in KY-4 and across the entire Commonwealth also support my work on the Epstein files, reigning in spending, ending forever wars, draining the swamp, and food freedom!’’
Massie has spent 13 years in the House and was in office during the first four years of Trump’s non-consecutive terms. The pair didn’t really get along then – Trump hated it when Massie forced the Houe to follow its own rules, occasionally holding up Trump-supported legislation. He also opposed Trump’s first tax-cut bill because it added to the skyrocketing national debt.
But things have really come to a head in this second term. Massie opposed the One Big Beautiful Bill, the measure that made Trump’s first term tax cuts permanent, adding trillions of dollars to the debt that has now reached just short of $39 trillion. He also opposed Trump’s military incursions into Venezuela and, most recently, Iran, arguing the authority to declare war rests solely with Congress under the Constitution.
Oh, but the real bad feelings have involved dickering over the so-called Epstein Papers, investigative documents related to the case against Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier who was friends with the high and mighty – including Trump at one point – who in 2008 was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution and indicted in 2019 for sex trafficking minors. Epstein committed suicide while in jail pending the latter charges.
The Epstein case drew an extensive probe, with some of his elite friends suspected of taking advantage of his sex trafficking activities. Trump sought to keep those records sealed, but Massie led an effort to open them to the public, including campaigning successfully for a discharge petition in the House to force their release. Trump, reluctantly, acquiesced.
Pro-Trump political organizations have been pouring millions of dollars into the campaign to defeat Massie, who recently acknowledged he is being outspent 3-to-1. According to CBS News, outside groups have already spent $5 million to oust him, including a huge hunk of cash from a political action committee called MAGA KY, with ties to Trump, that has dropped $2.7 million. Jewish groups, who disapprove of Massie’s votes regarding Israel, are also heavy givers.
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“So far, federal campaign finance records show that anti-Massie forces have dominated much of the outside spending picture in the Kentucky contest,’’ CBS reported.
Now, before you get all misty-eyed over the courageous, solitary Republican willing to bravely and single-handedly take on a president and the leaders of his own party, you should be reminded that Thomas Harold Massie is, like Trump, an Ass with a capital A. He is frequently a jerk whose continued existence in the House of Representatives isn’t a great reason to celebrate.
Want proof? Go to You Tube and check out the Massie television ad titled “Turning Back the Clock.’’ At the 18-second mark, a blurred photo of an unidentified rich-looking dude serves as a backdrop for the phrase, “WOKE EDDIE BANKROLLED BY PRO-TRANSGENDER CREEPS,’’ immediately followed by, “ED’S DONOR DONATED MILLIONS TO SUPPORT TRANSGENDER ACTIVISM.’’
It ends, “WOKE EDDIE GALLREIN HE’LL FIGHT FOR THEM BUT NEVER US.’’ Several of the letters in the message are colored by hues of the rainbow. A voice over states, “Woke Eddie Gallrine. You’ll fight for they, them, but never us.’’
So, who is “them’’ and who is “us?’’ And does support of trans rights make you a creep?
Now you would expect that a libertarian like Thomas Massie, who supports letting people drink raw milk and opposes compulsory vaccination, would want the government to take a hands-off approach to transgender folks, the vulnerable who find themselves dealing with societal scorn and inevitable crises. In other words, why shouldn’t they be allowed to enjoy freedom and liberty as well?
Instead, the ad shows ol’ Tom to be just another bigot.
Has there ever been an election when the old phrase, “Choose your poison’’ has proved more appropriate?
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Written by Bill Straub, a member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame. Cross-posted from the NKY Tribune.
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